Can anyone recomend a good overview of the uses of particles? A book, a magazine article, a journal article, whatever. I am interested in something that could help me get a feel for when and where particles should be used...
If you want a VERY comprehensive study of the difference between WA and GA, there is an excellent book called "Self master Series 1: Wa to Ga" --or actually "serufu masutaa shirizu 1: Wa to Ga" :-) Published by Kuroshio Shuppan. It is an excellent book, but I actually thought at times it got to be a little bit -too- comprehensive. That is, all the rules they set up started to conflict at some point. (But what do you expect... There really are no REAL firm always true rules you can make. It is my personal feeling that to understand these two pesty particles, you have to just hear a LOT of spoken Japanese and get a feel for the language. But nevertheless, I think it is an excellent book and it shed some light on a lot of questions that I had had.
For the other particles, the same company (Kuroshio shuppan) put out a book titled "kakujoshi"... --"particles". It is the "Self Master Series 3" book. I can't recommend a better book than this! A++
The "Self Master Series 2" book is called "Suru Shita Shiteiru" and it is also very good. All three are highly recommended.
They may be hard to come by, we used them in our Japanese Linguistics class, but the ENTIRE thing is in kanji & hiragana/katakana, so you get a real vocab workout with it too.
>>>>> "JH" == Jeff Halverson <jeff@Ika_Pon_Pon.umn.edu> writes:
JH> If you want a VERY comprehensive study of the difference between WA and JH> GA, there is an excellent book called "Self master Series 1: Wa to Ga" JH> --or actually "serufu masutaa shirizu 1: Wa to Ga" :-) Published by JH> Kuroshio Shuppan.
JH> The "Self Master Series 2" book is called "Suru Shita Shiteiru" and it JH> is also very good. All three are highly recommended.
Do these have ISBN numbers? (Unfortunately most books of this nature don't.) I'd love to come by some books for the intermediate student, as I've found that now after two years of classroom instruction everything that is commonly available is at a level that is a bit too low.
JH> They may be hard to come by, we used them in our Japanese Linguistics JH> class, but the ENTIRE thing is in kanji & hiragana/katakana, so you get JH> a real vocab workout with it too.
If they have no ISBN numbers, might I be able to get in contact with your language department? -- Jason L. Tibbitts III - ti...@tcamc.uh.edu - 713/743-8687 - 221SR1 System Admin: Texas Center for Advanced Molecular Computation 1994 PC800 "Kuroneko" DoD# 1723 GM/CS/S d--- -p+ c++++ l++ u+++ e+ m---(++) n--- s/-- h* f+ g+ w+ t- r- y+**
-=> Quoting Chris Gerteis @1:343/185. to All @{not Available}*4 <=-
CG@> From cgert...@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu (Chris Gerteis) CG@> Can anyone recomend a good overview of the uses of particles? A book, CG@> a magazine article, a journal article, whatever. I am interested in CG@> something that could help me get a feel for when and where particles CG@> should be used...
A friend just purchased "All About Particles" by Naoko Chino. I haven't examined it too closely yet, but it appears to comprised of many example sentences (in Japanese, roomaji, amd English) for all of the particles, as well as some other common suffixes and inflections. A short sampling of the table of contents includes:
- ha - ga - mo - wo - kara - made - gurai - shika - tokoro - tomo - dano - ze - yori - shi
I just kinda picked them randomly, and the list above represents about a quarter of the total. As for the content itself, I looked up "to" and found:
- Three sub-sections, categorized by grammatical principle 1. As "and" or "with" 2. Qoutative particle ( -to omou, -to iu, etc.) 3. Conditional particle
- A total of 14 example sentences
All in all, it looks like a good book if you're looking for a "particles only" type of reference. However, I find that my Bojinsha "Basic Japanese-English Dictionary" offers comparable information on particles (including lots of example sentences in the same three formats) as well as a complete (beginner's) dictionary. "-To" yielded the same three categories and 29 example sentences. I will add that this particular dictionary has proven to be an outstanding reference for this second-year Japanese student.
"All About Particles" is published by Kodansha, and appears to be part of a series of "Power Japanese" instructional/reference books. The cover is gold and white, and its 125 pages make it about a half-inch thick. ISBN4-7700-1501-1.
Hope that helps.
---------------------------------------------------------------- W. Michael Rollins | denbu...@asianet.ces.wa.com sysop, AsiaNet BBS | (電武士) Seattle USA | 石の上にも三年。。。 ----------------------------------------------------------------
In article <2v3pf9$...@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu> cgert...@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu (Chris Gerteis) writes:
Can anyone recomend a good overview of the uses of particles? A book, a magazine article, a journal article, whatever. I am interested in something that could help me get a feel for when and where particles should be used...
I suggest getting "All about particles", by Naoko Chino, published by Kodansha. It's part of the "Power Japanese" series. I found it very usefull. It treats the different uses of particles, and gives loads of examples. Actually, I like the entire series, especially "Gone fishin': New angles on perennial problems", by Jay Rubin. It's not only very informative, but also quite funny.
Hope this helps,
Eric
-- Eric Aardoom Delft University of Technology Phone: +31-(0)15-782845 Faculty of Electrical Engineering Fax: +31-(0)15-786190 Mekelweg 4, P.O.Box 5031, 2600 GA Delft Email: aard...@muresh.et.tudelft.nl The Netherlands
|> cgert...@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu (Chris Gerteis) writes: |> Can anyone recomend a good overview of the uses of particles? A book, |> a magazine article, a journal article, whatever. I am interested in |> something that could help me get a feel for when and where particles |> should be used...
Tad Perry posted an excellent introduction to particles and verbs a year or two ago. If he doesn't repost in a few days, I'll post the copy I've kept.
>|> cgert...@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu (Chris Gerteis) writes: >|> Can anyone recomend a good overview of the uses of particles? A book, >|> a magazine article, a journal article, whatever. I am interested in >|> something that could help me get a feel for when and where particles >|> should be used...
>Tad Perry posted an excellent introduction to particles and verbs a year or >two ago. If he doesn't repost in a few days, I'll post the copy I've kept.
See also in the FAQ, there is a book called "Particles Plus", section 5.3.1
These are the anonymous FTP sites/filenames where you can get the FAQ for sci.lang.japan (and probably other related useful stuff)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- rabico.univap.br , file /pub/Japan/language/FAQSLJ01-94.Z ftp.uwtc.washington.edu , file /pub/Japanese/FAQ.sci.lang.japan.txt ftp.cc.monash.edu.au , file /pub/nihongo/sci.lang.japan.FAQ ftp.funet.fi , file /pub/culture/japan/info/ [NOT AVAILABLE YET] kuso.shef.ac.uk, file /pub/faq/sljfaq -------------------------------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT: The first FTP site (rabico.univap.br) is experimental, and exceedingly slow. The only good point is that the first version will be always there - good for ftp redistribution. I hope it will become non- experimental one day. The file(s) can be distributed freely to other sites. Please let me know of other FTP sites that carry this FAQ.
Rafael. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- There's an extremely small but nonzero chance that, through a process known as 'tunneling', this message may spontaneously disappear from its present location and reappear at any random place in the Universe, including newsgroups and your private mail. I am not responsible for any inconvenience that may result.
|> >Tad Perry posted an excellent introduction to particles and verbs a year or |> >two ago. If he doesn't repost in a few days, I'll post the copy I've kept.
Tad sent me mail saying to just post it, so here it is: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- THE QUICK AND DIRTY GUIDE TO JAPANESE by Tad Perry
PREFACE
Many students of Japanese just want to communicate. Sure, they want to say things correctly as often as possible, but they also want to get into the language quickly and start mixing it up early. This QUICK AND DIRTY GUIDE TO JAPANESE was meant to help you do just that. It makes no pretense of being complete, but tries to pack the most *useful information* necessary to achieve the *goal of using Japanese* in the *shortest possible space*. This article therefore only covers *two* things: Particles (those wa, ga, wo, de, ni and he thingies) and verb conjugations.
This is my reasoning on this: you can build a vocabulary of nouns, just by looking in a dictionary or asking a native speaker. They almost never inflect (in any true meaning of the word) and are easy. Plus we won't be worrying about those strange noun-like things that can act like adjectives. So *you* can take care of the nouns yourself as you see fit.
On the other hand, the verbs and adjectives inflect so I'll try to present the most compact rules conceivable for allowing you to manipulate every verb you ever encounter and hopefully you can take it from their. The less mental overhead for remembering how to do it, the less painful it will be. After knowing the conjugation rules pat, you can get new vocabulary out of a dictionary or ask a native speaker.
Now that you have a bunch of nouns and a bunch of verbs and adjectives (that you can inflect), you need to know how to piece them together. That's where learning about the particles come in. Remember, this is a *Quick and Dirty* guide so don't expect these generalizations to *always* work, just expect them to work in as many cases as possible based on what I know.
Now, in compiling this, I noticed that the descriptions are pretty comprehensive. So why aren't these things presented this way in class? Well, an educational institution obviously has a financial stake in dragging out your language learning as long as possible (and confusing you along the way), now doesn't it? The also feel obligated to teach you every little detail so you feel like you're getting your money's worth. In the case of this guide, return comments such as: "You made generalization X, but for got to mention exceptions Y and Z." won't be appreciated very much. This is a *quick and dirty* guide, remember? So be forewarned that their are exceptions all over the place, but that I have tried to be as accurate as space allows. And space is the primary concern here. Please don't forget that.
PARTICLES
Word Order
Before talking about particles let's get into word order. In general, standard word order for Japanese when using an action verb is:
"Ashita, paatii ni iku." ("I'm going to a party tomorrow.")
SUBJECTs are put in brackets to stress that they are very often deleted. In general, if a new subject is introduced where another had been previously understood, signal the change by placing "wa" after the subject. If a subject is understood, but for some reason not deleted (that's rare) use "ga" or nothing. Often you can move a subject out after the verb when things start piling up before the verb. Like: "Ashita boku ga kooen de utau." (I'm singing at the park tomorrow.) often becomes: "Ashita kooen de utau, boku." For more on SUBJECTs, see the longer description in the next section, "Subjects and Deletion". Knowing how to delete is a key to sounding natural.
TIME is usually followed by "ni". In general, use "ni" for specific points in time or specific spans of time. So "jyuu gatsu [ni]" (October), "san gatsu mikka [ni]" (March 3rd) take "ni". A word like "ashita" (tomorrow) that can only be understood by context (it changes depending on when you say it). These types of words are called "deictic" time words and don't take "ni". "Ashita iku" ("I'm going tomorrow."), but: "sanji ni iku" ("I'm going at 3.") Even if you have trouble making the distinction between these two types of time words, don't worry: Japanese people can understand what you mean even if you get it backwards.
PLACE/IMPLEMENT is followed by "de". By PLACE, I mean the location that a volitional *action* occurred. If you're eating at home, that's "ouchi de shokuji suru". If you're eating with chopsticks, that's "ohasi de taberu". The place you do something or the thing you use to do something takes "de". If you're going somewhere by car, you say "kuruma de iku". It's not that hard to understand really. (See INDIRECT OBJECT for why DESTINATIONs are different.) Verbs of motion that tell DESTINATION, or ones of existence that tell the LOCATION of something take "ni". (DESTINATIONs can also take "he".) Try to distinguish PLACE from LOCATION by thinking of it this way: PLACE is WHERE SOMETHING IS DONE, LOCATION is WHERE SOMETHING OR SOMEONE IS. Use "kara" ("from") after an ORIGIN and "wo" after a ROUTE. "Gakkoo kara, kooen wo totte, ouchi ni kaeru." (Lit. "I'm going home from school through the park.") There's usually an intermediate verb in this type of usage.
OBJECT is followed by "wo" or nothing. "Hon wo yonde iru" (I'm reading a book.) This is a really simple one in most cases. I really don't know many Japanese learners who can't understand this.
INDIRECT OBJECT is followed by "ni". By INDIRECT OBJECT, I mean a sort of secondary object that some verbs take. "Kono hon wo anata ni ageru." ("I'm going to give this to you.") You have "this book" and you have "to you". The "this book" part is the OBJECT. The "to you" part is the INDIRECT OBJECT. "Wo" and "ni" are used to distinguish these two.
VERB doesn't take any particles, but it needs to be inflected. There's a big section at the end on how you do that, and useful colloquial English equivalents of what those inflections mean.
To boil this section down, remember it this way:
SUBJECT+wa/ga/nothing (delete subject if possible, show changes with "wa") TIME+ni/nothing (use nothing if it's a deictic time word) PLACE/IMPLEMENT+de (is the place where you *do* or where you *are*?) LOCATION+ni (is the place where you *are* or where you *do*?) ORIGIN+kara ROUTE+wo (is this a place on the way to where you're going?) DESTINATION+ni/he (use "ni" over "he" but be aware that both are okay.) INDIRECT OBJECT+ni (use this if you're out of choices :-) DIRECT OBJECT+wo
After understanding the descriptions given earlier, these nine lines are the key to knowing what particle to use 90% of the time. Even if these rules cause you to make a mistake you're definitely being understood.
Subjects and Deletions
Usually, you don't have to worry about whether to use wa or ga, because most subjects can usually be deleted. "You can't get something wrong, if you left it out in the first place." That's my philosophy. So we'll work on the parts of sentences that you can delete, starting with subjects.
If you turn to a Japanese and suddenly make a statement:
"Ashita paatii ni iku." ("[I'm] going to the party tomorrow.")
The listener will assume the subject is you. So don't bother supplying any subject. To do so, is in fact, not natural; a Japanese wouldn't normally do it.
If you turn to a Japanese and suddenly ask a question:
"Ashita paatii ni iku?" ("[Are you] going to the party tomorrow?")
The listener will assume the subject is himself or herself. Easy! Most one-on-one conversations where you or the listener is the subject *don't need an explicit subject*. No chance of screwing up wa/ga here.
If you suddenly turn to a Japanese and want to make a statement or ask a question about some other person altogether, use "wa" after that person's name or title the first time you mention that person:
"Shachoo wa, ashita paatii ni iku?" ("Is the shachoo going to the party tomorrow?")
Let's just say the "wa" introduces a change in subject. This time it signals a change from the default "you the listener" to the "shachoo". After you establish that you're talking about the president you can go back to dropping subjects again:
"Sono ato wa, kaeru ka na?" ("Is he going home after that?"--again some vagueness added with "ka na" ("I wonder"). Don't be too forward making assumptions about other people. This trick also stops the listener from thinking the question is back to being about themself. There's a strong tendency for questions to erase understood info and you have to signal that things are unchanged. Usually you play with the verb a little bit to get this across. Note that the change in time being talked about was also signaled with a "wa".)
Note that this tendency to delete in Japanese parallels the point where an English native speaker would use plain pronouns like, I, you, he, she, they. When you start a comment about yourself, you use "I" (Japanese delete). When you ask about the listener, you use "you" (Japanese delete). When you've first established someone and then keep going with that person, you use "he" or "she" (Japanese delete). See? Simple.
Deleting other Established Info
Just like with subjects any info that's been established can be deleted, and any changes in established info can be signalled using "wa":
: THE QUICK AND DIRTY GUIDE TO JAPANESE : by Tad Perry
[...] "quick" sure; but i hardly think it "dirty". I've been taking classes for nearly a year, and had not been told about this exception:
[...] : It's guaranteed *not* to be a -ru verb. It's probably a -u verb. (With : the exception of super-polite oddballs like gozaru/gozaimasu, but ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ These exceptions I mean. I couldn't figure out "nasaru/nasaimasu" until I read this guide. In fact it did not even occur to me to look up "nasaru" in the dictionary because I "knew" that the root verb "had to" be "nasau"!
Tad, thanks for a great paper.
[...] : what type it is. So far I've only met three verbs that ended "-eru" : that were -u verbs instead of -ru verbs. These are: keru/kette (kick), : heru/hette (decrease), and heru/hette (elapse). Except for these
also "kaeru" (return)...
"nakanaka jouzu ni natte inai" collin
Not a statement of YHP, Hewlett-Packard, or anyone else.
In article <2vvp6q$...@hpjsdo.kobe.hp.com> collin@PROBLEM_WITH_INEWS_GATEWAY_FILE (Collin Park) writes: >: THE QUICK AND DIRTY GUIDE TO JAPANESE >: by Tad Perry >"quick" sure; but i hardly think it "dirty".
I agree. For example, it has the sample phrase "paatii ni iku" but no comparison to "paatii de iku." -- << If this were the company's opinion, I would not be allowed to post it. >> A program in conformance will not tend to stay in conformance, because even if it doesn't change, the standard will. Force = program size * destruction. Every technical corrigendum is met by an equally troublesome new defect report.
I agree with people who say that posting is helpful. But you should know that it is mostly helpful for your speaking. The Japanese do not limit themselves to such a small set of sentence structures in their speech.
The author complained that courses don't teach his simplified method, and the reason simply is that if you want to understand native speakers you need to know a lot more than the simplest sentence structures. Even when a Japanese speaker is trying to 'dumb down' his/her speaking, what is in that guide will not be enough.
If you are content to speak in basic Japanese and expect an answer in English, then the guide would be very helpful. But it is really limited in use if you really want to understand spoken (or written) Japanese.
-- Ronald Guest ron.gu...@rss.dl.nec.com | More to this life...
Collin Park (collin@PROBLEM_WITH_INEWS_GATEWAY_FILE) wrote:
: : THE QUICK AND DIRTY GUIDE TO JAPANESE : : by Tad Perry
: Tad, thanks for a great paper.
: [...] : : what type it is. So far I've only met three verbs that ended "-eru" : : that were -u verbs instead of -ru verbs. These are: keru/kette (kick), : : heru/hette (decrease), and heru/hette (elapse). Except for these ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I'd be willing to bet that Tad has a newer version that fixes both of these (the original engendered a list of several more ...er- verbs, as I recall).
In article <30ebei$...@puma.rss.dl.nec.com>, r...@rss.dl.nec.com (Ron
Guest) writes: >I agree with people who say that posting is helpful. But you should >know that it is mostly helpful for your speaking. The Japanese do not >limit themselves to such a small set of sentence structures in their >speech.
>The author complained that courses don't teach his simplified method, >and the reason simply is that if you want to understand native speakers >you need to know a lot more than the simplest sentence structures. Even >when a Japanese speaker is trying to 'dum>b down' his/her speaking, >what is in that guide will not be enough.
>If you are content to speak in basic Japanese and expect an answer in >English, then the guide would be very helpful. But it is really limited >in use if you really want to understand spoken (or written) Japanese.
This may be the case, but for me it was helpful in showing me what lies ahead in studying Japanese. You can't learn everything at once, but it helps to have a "bigger picture" framework on which to hang the things you are learning. This is especially true for someone who is primarily familiar with Romance and Germainic languages and who is trying to learn Japanese.
-- Carol C. Kankelborg Amdahl Corp. cs...@eng.amdahl.com or cs...@cd.amdahl.com
> I agree with people who say that posting is helpful. But you should > know that it is mostly helpful for your speaking. The Japanese do not > limit themselves to such a small set of sentence structures in their > speech.
Well, actually.... Getting a Japanese to use a full sentence under any circumstance may prove rather difficult :-) I would claim that the guide does in fact cover most of the structures that a Japanese might use when speaking. I guess you'd have to go measure it to prove it though.
> The author complained that courses don't teach his simplified method, > and the reason simply is that if you want to understand native > speakers you need to know a lot more than the simplest sentence > structures. Even when a Japanese speaker is trying to 'dumb down' > his/her speaking, what is in that guide will not be enough.
Well, I'm the author and what I really complained about was that courses don't make things as easy as they can be. My experience with the language is that it is very straightforward and easy to grasp structurally although it is very different. What I mean is that very few rules and exceptions really need to be memorized to know what's going on.
I would never claim that the guide I produced covered everything. But I would claim that for it's extremely compact size it covers an awful lot. Certainly it covers more than just "the simplest sentence structures". So, while it might not be completely comprehensive, there really isn't that much left of the language structurally that isn't touched on somewhere in that guide. It goes from word order, to choosing a particle, to what to delete, to how to inflect for your purpose. I don't know exactly what complex structure that doesn't cover. Plus the beauty about Japanese is that complex sentences aren't that common in the spoken language anyway.
> If you are content to speak in basic Japanese and expect an answer in > English, then the guide would be very helpful. But it is really > limited in use if you really want to understand spoken (or written) > Japanese.
I disagree here. Once you really understand what's in the guide you can grasp a great deal of what you read or hear. The real question is whether you know enough kanji to be able to read and if your listening ability is up to decoding what you hear. Those are skills -- +---------------------------------------+ | Tad Perry Internet: t...@eskimo.com | | Compuserve: 70402,3020 | | Niftyserve: GBG01266 |
In article <CtA9s9....@eskimo.com>, t...@eskimo.com (Tad Perry) writes:
|> In article <30ebei$...@puma.rss.dl.nec.com>, |> Ron Guest <ron.gu...@rss.dl.nec.com> wrote: Lost of stuff deleted. |> > If you are content to speak in basic Japanese and expect an answer in |> > English, then the guide would be very helpful. But it is really |> > limited in use if you really want to understand spoken (or written) |> > Japanese. |> |> I disagree here. Once you really understand what's in the guide you |> can grasp a great deal of what you read or hear. The real question |> is whether you know enough kanji to be able to read and if your |> listening ability is up to decoding what you hear. Those are skills
I am not criticizing you. But I speak, read, listen, and write Japanese on a daily basis for real life business. I do not consider myself fluent, but I have quite a bit of very real experience with a very wide range of native speakers/writers.
For example, the posting didn't really explain the -tai form of a verb, though you did use it once. You didn't explain the -nagara form. And you did not discuss the -mashou form and deshou at all. And these are very common (I would say much more essential than many forms you did mention).
The posting doesn't address the ways you can ask people to do things. You don't use 'nasai' or 'kudasai' a single time! What about 'hou ga ii desu ne.' These are all words/phrases that are need on a daily basis in Japan and in communicating in Japanese. And if you use the wrong form of asking someone how to do something, you can cause a lot of friction.
Other things missing were how to combine adjectives (-kute), how to modify a sentence properly so it can be used to modify a noun For example, it is commonly necessary to take something like "The book that Mr. Tanaka bought yesterday" and use it as part of a sentence. "The book that Mr. Tanaka bought yesterday has a lot of useful information on Biotechnology." Are you saying your posting explains how to do that? Are you saying that "real" Japanese never say or write something like that? I don't see your point.
All of the things I mentioned would be covered early on in a book/class on Japanese. And they are all things/forms I hear/read on a daily basis. They are not some strange and rare forms. Yes, most Japanese sentences are not too long. But they are not necessarily simple, and the shorter length is often just the result of the fact Kanji allows denser communication of information.
In your posting you claimed that "an educational institution obviously has a financial stake in dragging out your language learning as long as possible (and confusing you along the way), now doesn't it?" I simply don't think that is true. For sure, some Japanese classes and books are not well done, and so make things harder than they really are.
Again, I am not critizing you, or the posting. It is useful, and I agree with the technical material that is there.
If it only claimed to give some basics about sentence structure, basics on a couple of particles, and a list of some verb conjugation, then I would not have posted anything. But your claim in the posting that everything not covered in it is not really necessary for effective communication is hyperbole. And your claim that "educational" institutions are trying to make the language too difficult is a little unreasonable.
Normally I don't respond a second time to a posting, because it often starts a boring cycle. But there is a lot missing from your posting if you want to speak/read/write at a Japanese adult level and I don't see how you can disagree with that.
-- Ronald Guest ron.gu...@rss.dl.nec.com | More to this life...
Ron Guest <ron.gu...@rss.dl.nec.com> wrote: > The author complained that courses don't teach his simplified method, > and the reason simply is that if you want to understand native speakers > you need to know a lot more than the simplest sentence structures. Even > when a Japanese speaker is trying to 'dumb down' his/her speaking, what > is in that guide will not be enough.
Absolutely. It's well known that Japanese infants have to go to cram schools for years before they are able to understand much of anything their parents try to tell them . After all, their parents are native speakers of Japanese, and it takes long time to learn the necessary sentence structures!
All sarcasm aside: young children do an awful lot of effective communication before they manage their first relative clause. To say that a Japanese speakers can't "dumb down" Japanese enough to get around someone else's inability to quite grok a relative clause construction (for example) is tantamount to saying that they can't communicate with their children. (I'm sure that, like parents everywhere, they can't communicate with their children anyway, but you know what I mean.)
If what you mean by "understand native speakers" is "evesdrop on convoluted discussions of office politics", you certainly have a point. But the gist I got was that the QUICK AND DIRTY GUIDE was about quickly getting past the babe-in-the-woods stage. I saw no claims that seemed to exceed this ambition. Please quote the passage I missed.
> If it only claimed to give some basics about sentence structure, > basics on a couple of particles, and a list of some verb conjugation, > then I would not have posted anything. But your claim in the posting > that everything not covered in it is not really necessary for > effective communication is hyperbole. And your claim that > "educational" institutions are trying to make the language too > difficult is a little unreasonable.
Most of the article is tongue in cheek anyway, as was that claim. I didn't think anyone would really consider I meant it 100%. There is no doubt however that many things could be made easier in classes.
>Normally I don't respond a second time to a posting, because it often >starts a boring cycle. But there is a lot missing from your posting >if you want to speak/read/write at a Japanese adult level and I don't see >how you can disagree with that.
I can't disagree with it at all. What I can disagree with is your portrayal of how trivial it is. Twice you have posted with the viewpoint that the guide is interesting but more or less trivial (that's my characterization of your apparent attitude, not a word you have actually used). It does much less than cover everything and it does much more than cover "some basics about sentence structure, basics on a couple of particles, and a list of some verb conjugation". You see what I mean? There really is a lot there for the confused learner.
Like the particles. They can really confuse some people, and I think one of the best things about the guide is describing what particles to use. C'mon. The section on particles describes more than "a couple of particles". I don't see how you can disagree with that.
Another thing it does well is boil down the rules for verb conjugation to a very manageable level. So it's not just "some verb conjugation". That's about all the verb conjugation there is in Japanese. I don't mean that I listed every compound like "-nagara" or "-tai" that can attach to a verb stem. I do mean that every verb form derived from the dictionary form and clear rules to arrive at those forms are present. -- +---------------------------------------+ | Tad Perry Internet: t...@eskimo.com | | Compuserve: 70402,3020 | | Niftyserve: GBG01266 |
Natsu Sakimura <sakim...@sscl.uwo.ca> wrote: >Well, I would like to read the original article, but I do not >seem to be able to find it. Could someone please send it to me, >or post it here again?
>Natsu
Okay. Since I've made some revisions to it anyway and had it bounce as mail to one person who requested it. Here it is. Judge for yourself. Was it worth my time to produce? Is it worth your time to study?
----cut here--- THE QUICK AND DIRTY GUIDE TO JAPANESE by Tad Perry
PREFACE
Many students of Japanese just want to communicate. Sure, they want to say things correctly as often as possible, but they also want to get into the language quickly and start mixing it up early. This QUICK AND DIRTY GUIDE TO JAPANESE was meant to help you do just that. It makes no pretense of being complete, but tries to pack the most *useful information* necessary to achieve the *goal of using Japanese* in the *shortest possible space*. This article covers four basic things: word order, particles, how to deletions work, and verb conjugation. That pretty much covers what you need to know to make a Japanese sentence that sounds more or less natural.
What you need is very brief grammatical rules that are presented clearly so you don't get confused. Memorize the grammar! I've reduced it to the absolute lowest common denominator so that it's not overwhelming but it still needs to be memorized.
After you get the rules down pat, you need a vocabulary. Again this is just a matter of memorization. For nouns you can look in a dictionary or ask a native speaker. They almost never inflect (in any true meaning of the word) and are therefore easy to remember and manipulate. For verbs, it is usually possible to derive all inflections (you must know the rules for inflection though) after memorizing just one form. Sometimes you need to know two forms. You'll learn more about this later in this guide.
As for rules on inflecting verbs and adjectives, I've tried to put together the most compact rules conceivable for allowing you to manipulate every verb you ever encounter and hopefully you can take it from there. The less mental overhead for remembering how to do inflect, the less painful it will be for you. But it still requires a certain amount of memorization. After you know the conjugation rules pat, you can add new verbs to your vocabulary almost as easily as nouns: look in a dictionary or ask a native speaker.
Now that you have a bunch of nouns and a bunch of verbs and adjectives (that you can inflect), you need to know how to piece them together. That's where word order, particles and deletions come in. Remember, this is a *Quick and Dirty* guide so don't expect these generalizations to *always* work, just expect them to work in as many cases as possible based on what I know, and trust me that you'll at least be understood if your pronunciation is acceptable.
Now, in compiling this guide, I noticed that the descriptions are pretty comprehensive. So why aren't these things presented this way in class? There are several reasons. First of all, I assume you are intelligent and motivated enough to use the information yourself. No drills, no tests. I present most facts exactly ONCE and move on. So pay attention. Also, an educational institution obviously has a financial stake in dragging out your language learning as long as possible (and confusing you along the way), now doesn't it? They also feel obligated, since you are paying them, to teach you every little detail so you feel like you're getting your money's worth. But in this guide I don't go into every detail and exception. That's why correspondence with the author with comments such as: "You made generalization X, but forgot to mention exceptions Y and Z." won't be appreciated very much. This is a *quick and dirty* guide, remember? So be forewarned that there are exceptions. Even so, I have tried to be as accurate as possible, but compactness takes precedence over detail. Got it? Okay, let's go.
WORD ORDER
Before talking about particles let's get into word order. In general, standard word order for Japanese when using an action verb is as shown below. SUBJECTs are put in brackets to stress that they are very often deleted.
"[Watakushi wa] ashita paatii ni iku." ("[I'm] going to a party tomorrow.")
IMPORTANT: Word order before the verb and the particles that nouns take depend on the verb type: action, existence or motion.
PARTICLES
SUBJECT
In general, if a new subject is introduced where another had been previously understood, signal the change by placing "wa" after the subject. If a subject is understood, but for some reason not deleted (that's rare) use "ga" or nothing. Often you can move a subject out after the verb when things start piling up before the verb. Like: "Ashita boku ga kooen de utau." (I'm singing at the park tomorrow.) often becomes: "Ashita kooen de utau, boku." For more on SUBJECTs, see the longer description in the next section, "Subjects and Deletion". Knowing how to delete is a key to sounding natural.
TIME
A time word or time phrase is usually followed by "ni". In general, use "ni" for specific points in time or specific spans of time. So "jyuu gatsu [ni]" (October), "san gatsu mikka [ni]" (March 3rd) take "ni". A word like "ashita" (tomorrow) that can only be understood by context (it changes depending on when you say it). These types of words are called "deictic" time words and don't take "ni". "Ashita iku" ("I'm going tomorrow."), but: "sanji ni iku" ("I'm going at 3.") Even if you have trouble making the distinction between these two types of time words, don't worry: Japanese people can understand what you mean even if you get it backwards.
PLACE/IMPLEMENT
By PLACE, I mean the location that a volitional *action* occurrs. If you're eating at home, that's "ouchi de shokuji suru". By implement, I mean a tool or item you use to perform an action. If you're eating with chopsticks, that's "ohasi de taberu". The place you do something or the thing you use to do something takes "de". If you're going somewhere by car, you say "kuruma de iku". It's not that hard to understand really.
DESTINATION
In Japanese, a DESTINATION is not an indirect object. You must think of it as a destination belonging to a verb of motion. Verbs of motion that give a DESTINATION, or ones of existence that tell the LOCATION of something take "ni". (DESTINATIONs can also take "he".) Try to distinguish PLACE from LOCATION by thinking of it this way: PLACE is WHERE SOMETHING IS DONE, LOCATION is WHERE SOMETHING OR SOMEONE EXISTS.
ORIGIN and ROUTE
Use "kara" ("from") after an ORIGIN and "wo" after a ROUTE. "Gakkoo kara, kooen wo totte, ouchi ni kaeru." (Lit. "I'm going home from school through the park.") There's usually an intermediate verb in this type of usage. This covers the seemingly odd construction in Japanese of "mado wo magaru". You see you turn *through* the corner. It's not the ORIGIN. It's not the DESTINATION. It's along the way. Therefore it's the ROUTE you take. Therefore, you need "wo"
OBJECT
Objects are followed by "wo" or nothing. "Hon wo yonde iru" (I'm reading a book.) This is a really simple one in most cases. I really don't know many Japanese learners who can't understand this concept.
INDIRECT OBJECT
Indirect objects are followed by "ni". By INDIRECT OBJECT, I mean a sort of secondary object that some verbs take. "Kono hon wo anata ni ageru." ("I'm going to give this book to you.") You have "this book" and you have "to you". The "this book" part is the OBJECT. The "to you" part is the INDIRECT OBJECT. "Wo" and "ni" are used to distinguish these two. In English, a preposition tends to come before the indirect object. (Like the "to" before "you" in this example.) This is the one that in Japanese needs to take "ni".
VERB
Even a verb can take particles. You can use "yo" for exclamations and "ka" for questions. Most people find this easy. But the real problem with verbs is that they need to be inflected. There's a big section at the end of this guide that gives the rules on how to inflect Japanese verbs. Useful colloquial English equivalents of what those inflections mean are also given.
IMPORTANT:
To boil this section down, remember it this way:
SUBJECT+wa/ga/nothing (Delete subject if possible, show changes with "wa".) TIME+ni/nothing (Use nothing if it's a deictic time word.) PLACE/IMPLEMENT+de (A place where you *do* something or a thing you use.) LOCATION+ni (A location where someone or something *is*.) ORIGIN+kara ROUTE+wo (Part of the path you follow to get somewhere.) DESTINATION+ni/he (Use "ni" over "he" but be aware that both are okay.) INDIRECT OBJECT+ni (Use this if you're out of choices. It's often right!) DIRECT OBJECT+wo
After understanding the descriptions given earlier, these nine lines are the key to knowing what particle to use 90% of the time. Even if these rules cause you to make a mistake you're definitely being understood.
DELETIONS
Usually, you don't have to worry about whether to use wa or ga, because most subjects can usually be deleted. "You can't get something wrong, if you leave it out in the first place." That's my philosophy. So we'll work on the parts of sentences that you can delete, starting with subjects.
If you turn to a Japanese and suddenly make a statement:
"Ashita paatii ni iku." ("[I'm] going to the party tomorrow.")
In article <1994Jul27.232605.27...@aist.go.jp>, sakim...@sscl.uwo.ca (Natsu Sakimura) writes: > Well, I would like to read the original article, but I do not > seem to be able to find it. Could someone please send it to me, > or post it here again?
> Natsu
Me too. From the sound of the discussion, it seems to be a good guide.
